Key takeaways
- CMI started in Oman in 2007 as a coffee bean distributor, added equipment and accessories in 2012, then its own roastery around 2021 to 2022.
- At the Global Coffee Awards 2026, CMI won the MENA Specialty Drip Bag category. It also took golds for two co-fermented drip bags and its Brazil-anchored house blend.
- CMI engineers its packaging for shelf life, stacking efficiency, and freshness first, then treats the visual identity as the layer on top.
From petrol station coffee sales to a Global Coffee Awards win, CMI’s journey shows how equipment distributors across the Gulf keep stepping into roasting.
Coffee Market Innovations (CMI) roasts and distributes specialty coffee across Oman and the UAE, and it runs a large technical service operation alongside the roastery. CMI won the Overall Category Winner for Specialty Drip Bag at the 2026 Global Coffee Awards in MENA. Bogdan Prunila, CMI’s Managing Director, built the roasting programme on the technical foundation of the equipment business.
That combination has paid off. MTPak Coffee spoke to Bogdan about CMI’s origins, its sourcing philosophy, and how the company approaches packaging as both a distributor and a roaster. Read on for his insights.
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Sign upFrom petrol stations to specialty roasting
CMI traces its roots to Crown Muscat International, founded in Oman in 2007. The company first distributed a Dubai-roasted coffee brand through petrol stations. Bogdan joined in 2011 and helped steer the business towards equipment sales and technical service, adding equipment and accessories in 2012. Today, CMI maintains a large after-sales technical team in Oman and the UAE.
The move into roasting came later, and a gap among CMI’s own equipment clients drove it. “A lot of clients were buying the equipment but buying their specialty coffee from outside, and that started to bother me a little, that I didn’t have the client fully on board with me,” he explains.
Before launching the roastery, Bogdan completed SCA intermediate roasting training and sensory work with his team. He then brought in Italian consultant Paolo Scimone to guide the technical setup. That sequence matters because more roasters open every year, and technical grounding separates the ones that last.
The wider region gave CMI room to move. The Middle East’s coffee market has expanded rapidly, and Middle Eastern roasting trends have shifted accordingly.
Expanding beyond Oman
CMI’s reputation grew through appearances at events like World of Coffee Dubai. The company then decided to establish a presence in Abu Dhabi, reflecting Khaled’s ties to the emirate. Bogdan describes the city as a middle ground between Oman’s traditional character and Dubai’s fast-paced glamour.
CMI opened a showroom and small roastery on Saadiyat Island before relocating operations to the Kizad industrial area to keep pace with growing demand. Dubai’s rise as a specialty hub pulled attention across the Gulf, and a growing number of UAE roasters built their followings in the same window.
Bogdan is candid about the balance a commercial roastery demands. “If I chose only what I like, I could probably close tomorrow, because what I like has very small consumption. You need to understand the market’s needs, and understand how you can add value to those needs based on your experience,” he says.
That commercial realism extends to materials, and UAE roasters investing in biodegradable packaging face the same trade-off between ideals and margins.
Reading Gulf coffee trends
CMI’s dual presence in Oman and the UAE gives it a vantage point on regional taste. Gulf consumers read flavour nuance closely. Generations of drinking Arabic coffee shaped that sensitivity, a very light and coarsely ground style distinct from Turkish coffee. That palate sophistication has translated into an openness to experimentation, even as broader preferences shift.
“There was a period where people leaned towards light roast and very fruity, but people are moving back towards classic coffees with a balanced fruitiness and acidity. They still love a good body on the coffee, especially on espresso,” Bogdan notes.
The same pattern appears elsewhere in the region. Saudi coffee consumption has followed a similar arc, and baristas across the Middle East describe customers who arrive already fluent in the vocabulary. The region’s long influence on coffee helps explain why.
Sourcing with purpose
Brazil and Ethiopia anchor CMI’s green coffee programme, with Colombia and El Salvador rounding out the core lineup. Bogdan stresses that origin selection is a quality decision rather than a cost-driven one. He points to CMI’s 84 to 84.5 score for a Brazilian coffee as an example of paying for balance and consistency rather than chasing the cheapest lot.
Colombia holds a particular place in CMI’s sourcing strategy, supported by direct import relationships that depend on green coffee arriving in good condition. Co-fermented lots, including coconut, lychee, passion fruit, raspberry, and strawberry profiles, have become a signature category. CMI is now developing a tobacco-fermented offering.
“We are doing it properly, working with farmers who can guarantee it is done with a proper fermentation process using the fruits, so those coffees really carry the fruit itself; you taste it in the cup,” Bogdan says.
That distinction carries weight, because infused and co-fermented coffees differ in ways buyers increasingly check. Colombia now produces co-ferments at scale, and a clear market has formed around them. CMI is considering Rwanda as its next African origin.
The award-winning house blend
CMI’s house blend took gold in the espresso blend subcategory at the Global Coffee Awards 2026. It combines a Brazil natural with two washed coffees, from Colombia and Nicaragua. Bogdan describes the development process as iterative trial and error, built around one design constraint. The blend needed to perform across milk drinks, long black, and straight espresso for coffee shops running a single grinder.
“Once we found the right recipe for espresso, we would go to milk and find out it was not good, so we would go back. Once you found something good on one side, the other side wasn’t as good,” he recalls.
That tension is familiar to anyone who has built an espresso blend, and roasting for milk pulls a profile in a different direction to roasting for black coffee. CafΓ©s developing a signature blend hit the same wall, and roasters supplying them need packaging built for wholesale. The final formula, Bogdan says, evokes coffees from earlier in his career while working across every format.
Packaging built for function first
CMI’s yellow-and-black bags recently won a Best Coffee Bag award at World of Coffee Dubai. They grew out of a practical problem rather than a purely visual brief. Award-winning packaging rarely starts with decoration. Bogdan noticed that standard ten-kilogram boxes left excessive dead space during shipping, which prompted a redesign focused on stackability and air removal.
“We made the bags in such a way that they can stack square, one on top of the other, and you also remove all the air inside the bag, so you create a vacuum without actually having a vacuum,” he explains.
Wasted volume costs money on every pallet, and packing coffee properly for shipping protects both margin and product. Preventing damage in transit depends on the same decisions.
A Serbian designer developed the visual identity, choosing yellow for shelf standout and black for contrast, evoking established international brands. Colour does real work on a shelf, particularly in a crowded category.
Bogdanβs broader packaging philosophy centres on shelf life and usability over decoration alone. “The right packaging, in my opinion, is a simple one that has a nice design but delivers the right product and preserves the coffee beans for longer,” he says. Ease of opening and hopper compatibility matter as much to him as visual appeal. That is why tear-open formats and shelf-life performance sit at the centre of the brief.
Sustainability in the roastery
Environmental responsibility factors into CMI’s equipment choices as much as its packaging. The company installed an afterburner on its roasters to control smoke output, and it monitors electricity and water use across operations. CMI treats this as an industry-wide responsibility rather than a marketing angle, noting that collective action from many companies moves the needle on environmental impact.
That mindset extends into how CMI evaluates new equipment, weighing emissions control alongside performance and output. Reducing emissions during roasting has become a live operational question rather than a distant one, and the environmental impact of roasting reaches further than most roasters assume.
For a company operating where energy demands run high, that scrutiny reflects a longer-term view. Responsible roastery operations and sustainable packaging choices work together rather than as separate initiatives.
Looking ahead for CMI
CMI’s trajectory from petrol station distributor to award-winning roaster shows how expertise in technical equipment translates directly into roasting credibility. CMI has expansion underway in Abu Dhabi, a growing co-fermented Colombian lineup, and recent recognition at the Global Coffee Awards 2026. On that footing, it can keep shaping specialty coffee culture across Oman and the UAE.
Bogdan closed by crediting the Global Coffee Awards and the Producer Roaster Forum for supporting roasters like his across the region.
Roasters building a packaging spec around freshness, stacking, and shelf presence face the same questions CMI worked through. At MTPak Coffee, we offer custom coffee bag packaging with high-barrier materials, one-way degassing valves, and low MOQs. Contact our team to talk through your next run.
FAQs
What does CMI roast, and where?
CMI roasts and distributes across Oman and the UAE, with operations in Abu Dhabi’s Kizad industrial area. Brazil, Ethiopia, Colombia, and El Salvador form the core origins, and CMI is considering Rwanda next.
What did CMI win at the Global Coffee Awards 2026?
CMI took the MENA Specialty Drip Bag category. Golds followed by an anaerobic fermentation Red Bourbon decaf, an extended-fermentation Passion Fruit Caturra, and its espresso house blend.
Why did CMI redesign its coffee bags?
Standard ten-kilogram boxes left dead space during shipping. CMI rebuilt the bag to stack square and to push out internal air, which helps preserve freshness and reduces wasted volume on every pallet.
